Most companies are flexible for families

By Sherrill NixonOctober 1 2002

Three-quarters of NSW companies allow parents to work flexible hours to help balance work and family commitments, a survey by the State Chamber of Commerce has found.

The survey of 109 companies also found two-thirds of those surveyed supported a national paid maternity leave scheme, funded either solely by the Government or through a government/employer combination.

It was released as employer groups and the Workplace Relations Minister, Tony Abbott, dismissed as unworkable and job-destroying a proposed ACTU test case on maternity leave and other entitlements for working parents.

Under the test case, which it plans to launch next year, unpaid maternity leave with job security would be extended to three years, with an option for a further two with employer consent.

Parents would also be entitled to part-time work, flexible hours and extra holidays.

The State Chamber of Commerce chief executive officer, Margy Osmond, said the most successful family-friendly work arrangements were about give and take, whereas the ACTU plan to regulate parents' employment conditions was only about employers giving.

"There is a clear incentive to offer flexible working hours ... of those employers that do allow their staff to work flexible hours, over 80 per cent said it had helped them retain staff."

The survey found 39 per cent of companies allowed people returning from parental leave to work flexible hours, while 32 per cent allowed those parents to work part-time.

The Australian Hotels Association said the ACTU plan was unrealistic.

"This measure is a disincentive for employing women and would be unworkable in the hospitality industry," said the association's industrial relations manager, Jane Bergmann-Hanna. "There are very few small and medium-sized businesses that would be able to support this kind of policy."

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry said businesses could not be put on hold for three years, and neither could employees' jobs.

"Australia does not have the luxury to fiddle around with this narrow agenda on work and family whilst we still have over 600,000 Australians unemployed," it said.

Mr Abbott ruled out government support for the case, as the Government was in favour of greater flexibility and of employees and employers working out their own arrangements.

"What we're not in favour of is one-size-fits-all, across-the-board legislative and semi-legislative prescriptions, and that's what the ACTU seems to want," he said.

"They always want a legislative solution to something that is much better fixed up between ordinary individuals in the workplace."